Long weekend

I've been off for a couple of days. Comes from working all last weekend. Tomorrow I'll spend some time in the morning wrestling Adam into his church clothes, and the afternoon at church. Monday I will either a) go to work, or b) sit on the couch all day, moving only to brush crumbs off my shirt. It's a coin toss at this point.

Some long weekend thoughts:

1. I never again want to hear my retirement/health/life insurance company tell me they are doing something "to better serve me". It always ends up having some sort of catch in the end. My current favorite is 'justifying' posts to my flexible spending account.
2. I found some interesting books at the library using the "Emma method" of finding books to check out. (Involves wandering semi-aimlessly until something jumps out at you.) The book I am reading is called "Batman and Philosophy", where a bunch of people show you how philosophy relates to real life - by using examples from fiction. I guess that makes sense. They have a whole series of these books. More on that later. My favorite all time philosophy moment? Our single's ward Bishop was a philosophy professor. I think he liked maintaining an even keel. When Tara and I told him we were engaged, there was a brief look of sudden shock, then he caught it and told us he didn't even know we were dating. We had him there for a second. The look on his face was priceless.
   
3. Those kids of ours can pound through all kinds of laundry. I folded a lot of laundry. I think I folded some of it several times, but maybe it was just blurred vision from the quantity.
4. NBC piles a lot of commercials into their Olympic coverage. We've been recording them and getting to them later. I think we are three days behind right now. It's nice being able to forward through all the advertisements. I watched some of the online coverage during the Summer Olympics, but I haven't had the time this time, and it was kind of weird watching some of it without commentary. Maybe it was just the rowing...
   
5. Speaking of of TV, there is no way to insert yourself in the viewing choices in this house in the mornings. Yesterday morning I tried stopping the 'shows' at 10am in favor of Olympic recordings. There was outrage. I ended up cleaning my room. Shows where I stand around here, I guess.
6. The truck is dying. I like to say it acts funny every time I fill up at Sinclair, and it does, but I think it's caught something terminal. I'm gonna have to start walking to work again sometime in the next 8 months.
7. Tara's Christmas present should be done, say, around Thanksgiving. Or something.
   
8. I need to have a little talk with the people that live behind us now. I don't understand why some houses always seem to attract the same kinds of renters. I don't spend a lot of time in the back yard during the Winter, I was last back there about 6 weeks ago. I found a little airline vodka bottle and another bottle in the yard, seemingly tossed over the fence. Today I took some block from the front porch to the backyard. (I am going to do some more work on my retaining wall this Spring.) I found all kinds of things in the yard, I guess tossed over the fence: Another airline vodka bottle, a cinder block, a chewing tobacco can, a large bottle of hand soap, and a used tiki torch. Seemed like an odd combination of things. Must have been an interesting party. Or whoever was working on the place before the current tenants moved in. Either way, they need to knock it off.
9. Kaylynn called Tara last night saying she was surprised to hear that Tara was pregnant. I thought everyone knew, except for maybe Missy, who seems to have dropped out of sight completely. I guess I forgot to tell Drew and Kaylynn. She said 'Grisly Adam' said something about maybe coming out here again after Tara had another baby. Kaylynn thought that was a weird comment. Anson spent a little time over here yesterday playing with the girls, when I took him home, Kate asked to ride with us, so she could say hi to them. Turns out it was a trick to get over there and ask if she could spend the night over there. Anyway, Kate told Kaylynn that Tara was pregnant. Oh - and by the way - in case someone hasn't heard - Tara's expecting...
10. Wouldn't it be funny if Shaun White was really bald, and all that hair was really a wig? "Flying Tomato" and all...
11. It's kind of nice having your coat break towards the end of the Winter, rather than finding it broken when you pull it out in the beginning of the season. The zipper on my coat recently fell to pieces, and it got a little colder here again. Coats were 60% off at the store we went to, found a nice one for $35. It's a little cooler in the sleeves, but seems like a pretty good coat.
    
12. I need to figure out a way to be able to play the Wii when people are watching TV. I have games to finish. And I got Tara a set of "Emma" DVDs for Valentine's day, I'm going to need something to do when she's watching those. Maybe a smaller second TV. There's deals online all the time.
    
13. Yesterday afternoon - kids taking naps, Tara taking naps - what do I do? Watch "The Incredible Hulk". Don't make him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
14. I've been working on my Farmville farm. Mostly just trying to complete the collections, work on the ribbons, and get those mastery signs. Aunt Peggy wanted to know what the deal was with all the rice, she figured it was something to do with food storage, but it was all about the mastery sign. I know, exciting life...
15. NASA astronauts have a twitter feed now. From space. They've been posting some interesting photos. NASA_Astronauts, if you are interested.
16. I'm a true "Bebbled" master. It's a Droid thing.
17. Someday I need to finish painting this place. Maybe not incredibly soon. (See #9)
18. I was thinking about Watergate while making pancakes this morning. I don't remember why any more. Is there something pancakes has to do with the Watergate scandal?
19. Our current Wellness program thing ends this weekend. We were supposed to set goals for weight, nutrition, and exercise, and track how we did for six weeks. I did ok for the first four weeks, ended up slacking off on all three counts for the last two. (Working 52 hours one week and 46 the next had something to do with it.) On Monday, they sent an email saying we didn't have to actually reach all the goals to qualify for the $25, just have tracked how we did. This, of course, totally demotivated me for the rest of the week. Hurray for setting the bar low, or something like that. The next one is the annual fruit and veggie challenge. That one's always cake, but not literally.
20. I've decided I don't have a use for Google Buzz. There are already plenty of other ways to be connected, I didn't need another one, and it doesn't really do anything different or special, as far as I can tell. I was initially excited about it's relation to Google Maps, where you could make posts for a restaurant or store you visit, and have some sort of ongoing posts about those places. It would be nice to have the Buzz about a good restaurant (or bad) right there on the map. Turns out the posts on the maps are transient, disappearing after a while, as far as I can tell. (Not sure what the interval is, or the criteria.) Buzz was someone's 20% time, right? Why not deploy it for the Maps application first, and make the posts last longer? Oh well.
    

Clearly I haven't kept myself busy enough. Lots of TV involved. Might be time to go back to work, where I can cause real trouble.